Ryan: Defunding Planned Parenthood unlikely under 'constraints'
By Sarah Ferris - 11/02/15 11:06 AM EST
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is tamping down expectations that Planned Parenthood could be defunded in this year’s must-pass government spending bill, a decision that is likely to inflame conservatives.
In an interview with CNN’s "State of the Union," Ryan said Planned Parenthood shouldn’t “get a red cent” of taxpayer dollars, but warned it was nearly impossible to prevent it while President Obama remains in office.
“I think we need to be very clear about what it is we can and cannot achieve and not set expectations that we know we can't reach given the constraints of the Constitution,” Ryan said in the Sunday interview.
He said that Democratic control of the White House as well as the strict rules of the Senate are both major roadblocks to adding a rider in the upcoming spending bill.
“Knowing that we have those constraints, we have to operate within these constraints,” he said.
The newly sworn-in Speaker said the House needs to “do our oversight,” pointing to the just-launched committee to investigate Planned Parenthood.
“This special committee should be in the driver's seat of overseeing this process,” Ryan said.
Members of that committee were appointed as one of the last moves by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who retired last week.
Ryan’s remarks — his most extensive to date on Planned Parenthood — come days after the group’s President Cecile Richards sent a letter pressing Ryan for a “fair and impartial” investigation.
In a letter sent Friday, Richards warned Ryan of what she described as “troubling activity” by House Republicans as they have probed the group, accusing some in the party of having a political motive.
“It is increasingly difficult to understand the basis for the ongoing investigations into Planned Parenthood,” she wrote in the letter. The group is now facing four congressional investigations in the wake of the video controversy over its fetal tissue donation program. It's not faced any criminal charges.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/258828-ryan-defunding-planned-parenthood-unlikely-under-constraints
